BMW Art Guide by Independent Collectors

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The Elliott Eyes Collection

Engaging With the Collectors – Sydney

(large painting) Rick Amor “The Gateway (The Man Who Walked Away); (bronze sculpture below painting) Rick Amor, “Marquette for Figure in a Landscape”. Photo: Christopher Pearce

It is not often that art collectors open the door to their private home and also personally show visitors around, but this is what makes the Elliott Eyes Collection a special experience. In the elegant Victorian townhouse of Gordon Elliott and Michael Eyes, art fills every available wall, surface, and corner. The two have amassed almost three hundred works, mostly by artists from Australia and New Zealand, including Rick Armor, James Gleeson, Peter Churcher, and Michael Zavros, and they are proud of their collection’s highly individual, personal character. Many of the works are surprisingly humorous. The (mostly male) human figure, either as sculpture or on canvas, is a clear focus. Contemporary ceramics, with works by Gwyn Hanssen Pigotte and Stephen Benwell, are another.

Terry Stringer, "A Matter of Perspective"

(Large painting over bed and mantle piece) Michael Zavros, “This Charming Man” (large painting over the draws) Robert Dickerson, “Shifting Rocks, Cambewarra”; (small marble road bollards) Alex Seton, “Invitation”. Photo: Christopher Pearce

Anne Reimers is a London-based art historian and journalist, reporting since 2006 on art auctions, fairs, and exhibitions in the British capital. She is also Senior Lecturer for Visual Culture and Fashion Theory at the University for the Creative Arts (UCA) in Rochester, England.

All images courtesy the Elliott Eyes Collection